Ivan Aivazovsky, Part 2 | Virtual Museum Tour

Due to his talent and perseverance, the artist was given an opportunity to work outside the academy. The first thing he did was leave Feodosia, his native place of birth, and the city in which he lived for a good part of his life. At that time he was fond of the works of the painter Sylvester Chaudry, and he wanted to paint like him, all natural. Then, when he was in Italy, he realized that he couldn't paint in this style. He was the first master of marine art who turned down the offer. All others, on the contrary, took up painting of landscapes, but Ivo Zovsky understood that it wasn't his thing. The National Museum, Kyiv Art Gallery. Today it is one of the most outstanding museums in Ukraine. In fact, more than a century ago, it was literally a wasteland that was in desperate need of reconstruction and development. At one time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Central Rada, the government of Skoropodsky, and the Directory were situated under the roof of this building. Today masterpieces of world art of the 13th to 20th century are glorified in this museum. Canvas oil. 110 by 132. To be more precise, the image of one of these storms that the artist often depicted in his paintings was 132.3 cm in size. An amazing technique where two completely different methods of painting were used. This is exactly how these images are depicted somewhere in the upper corner of the painting and how the waves are transparently painted. But he applies a layer of this paint so thinly that even the granular texture of a canvas is visible and seems almost transparent. Indeed, it flows like a watercolor paint. One can see in this scrupulous work that clearly shows the density of the sea foam. He took very small brushes and sometimes even used the handle of a brush. In this way, using the opposite side of the brush, he applied a brush stroke and created something resembling a mosaic. What events preceded the painting of this amazing picture? Why did the favorite artist of St. Petersburg instantly turn into an outcast of this city? And what exactly happened to the cultural heritage of Ivozovsky? Autumn of 1845. Upon returning from a sea expedition under the leadership of Admiral Fyodor Litke, the painter Ivan Ivozovsky asked the Academy of Arts and the main naval headquarters to extend his stay in Crimea so that he could finish the work he had begun. In response, he received permission to stay until May of the following year. That same year, he bought a piece of land on a deserted beach in Crimea overlooking the Black Sea and started building his own house. Throughout his life, the artist traveled back and forth between Feodosia and St. Petersburg. Although he had become a famous painter of the Royal Court and was offered to teach at the Academy of Arts while staying in St. Petersburg, he could not imagine his life not living by the sea. After all, this is what he enjoyed the most and what inspired him in his creative works. Moreover, he felt in his heart and soul that the regions of Crimea and Tavrida were always his homeland. Ivan Ivozovsky was not attracted to the idea of being a Royal Court painter and fulfilling the wanton desires of wealthy customers. He painted portraits very rarely, mostly only those of people that were very close to him. But there was one more circumstance that drew the Crimean artist to return to his native home. Of course, he saw and enjoyed the pompous beauty of Petersburg to the fullest. Then Ivozovsky returned from his business trip abroad as an enviable fiancé. After all, he was rich, famous, talented and young, but he was not inspired only by the big city life. One lady of St. Petersburg hired him as a master artist to hook him up with one of her two daughters as a potentially perfect and obvious son-in-law. Then she tried to guess which of her daughters he would choose as his wife. But in the end, Ivozovsky chose the daughter of the staff doctor named Yulia Grevs, who was the governess of the two daughters. From the first day of their meeting, Ivozovsky could not get out of his head the image of such a beautiful girl. Once, he daringly and unnoticeably placed in her hand a letter with his words of love for her. Ivozovsky married a governess, and this situation turned out to be a major scandal in society. But the fact is that it was love, true love. Earlier, the welcome guest in almost every house Ivozovsky more frequently began to hinting at his non-nobility origin. Taking his young wife, the artist went to Feodosia. Nevertheless, the family often visited St. Petersburg, where in June 1849 his first daughter was born. And the following year, he finished and presented his epical painting The Ninth Wave. While it was truly majestic, at the same time, the conflicting feelings of the artist were visible in this work. Most certain ideas of the artist are connected with this particular work. It seemed that all was going very well with him. He had found the love of his life and got married. He was already quite a famous artist, who had spent time in Italy, France, Germany and Spain. But together with these moments of happiness in life, his teacher and best friend had passed away. The artist began to feel that serious changes were taking place in his life. Moreover, these changes happened very suddenly, and they were not for the better in most cases. But he could not be sad and immersed in such endless sadness forever. He had to fight and live on. And the painting The Ninth Wave corresponded to this mood, depicting and conveying the mood of struggle between men and the elements. Indeed, the brilliant artist distanced himself from the application of excessive academic styles and themes in his works and rejected using many of his previously popular techniques in painting. It became clear that in some works he no longer depicted the shadow parts, that is, the darkened parts. Instead, he used the same glazes in one layer, because it created the illusion of depth, the saturation of color and the depth of color. When he painted, for example, waves, shores, pebbles and light, he already began applying only one color. He even used such technique known as alla prima, that is precisely impressionistic artists did for the first time. The artists wishing to achieve a certain color or shade of paint in their work mixed them in a palette. Then the impressionists began using this technique directly on canvas. This is exactly the method of painting that Aivazovsky had adopted in his works. He applied the paint to the canvas without the preliminary mixing. And already this paint, as it were, acquired the necessary coloristic sound directly on the canvas. He refused those brilliant ones. He did not hide the direction of the smear. On the contrary, as if this smear was powerful, hasty, protruding above the surface of the canvas. Along with pastel brush strokes, the artist also used small ones. He wrote the crests of the waves with miniature strokes with the help of small brushes. The waves themselves, with hard brushes or even pebbles, without hiding the direction of the smear. This creates the illusion or the impression of the movement of this very element itself. But the artist refused to use these brilliant varnishes. Instead, he decided to add certain such special compounds and mastic. This is exactly what gave a matte surface to his remarkable canvases, which was contrary to the technique he applied in previous works. Along with changes in creativity, the artist's hobbies also changed. In 1853, in Feodosia, during archaeological digs, Roman and Greek antique objects were found. This gave a spark to Graf's excitement of going on a search for antiquities. The couple got permission to conduct archaeological digs. Together they worked hard. Graf's sifted the land, dug up from graves and monitored the safeguarding of the finds. The Ivozovsky couple unearthed 18 mounds. But in autumn of the following year, the carefree life of the family was interrupted. At the height of the Crimean War between Russia and Turkey, there was a danger of the siege of Feodosia by the Turks. The family left for Kharkiv to steer clear of danger. And in 1856, they went for an exhibition that was being held in France. This trip turned out to be the beginning of the discord of family life. While somehow the couple's relationship was not working out for the better, with time they decided to separate and began living separate lives. Returning from Paris and trying to get accustomed to his secular life, Yulia found Feodosia quite boring. She was increasingly drawn to St. Petersburg, where she could attend balls and other social events. Then she began to arrange such events in their Feodosia stay, inviting the local nobility. Ivozovsky, on the contrary, preferred chatting with friends over a glass of wine without any emotions or even talking with ordinary people. Quarrels arose in the family more often. In the end, Yulia went to Odessa forever. In June 10, 1870, Ivozovsky appeared to the Etchmiadzin Synod with a request for a divorce from his wife. But this problem dragged on, and a solution was not found for many years. Grebsk was a Lutheran. As for the divorce, the consent of another church was required. Further, public criticism only fueled the fire to the family's turmoil. As an artist and a master, he probably went through a very difficult period in his life, when the romanticism between him and his wife faded away. This romanticism was replaced by critical realism that had a negative impact on the artist's work starting in the 1860s and carrying on into the 1870s. Even art critics became very picky about the artist's work. But the artist was so in love with the sea that he continued to draw and paint his beloved seascapes. But at the same time, he went on a creative quest for new artistic techniques, coloristic features and figurative styles that would help him continue to depict his classical, beautiful and romantic seascapes. It was in the early 1870s when the artist visited Italy again. There he held an exhibition of his works. It was a very flashing event, and his palette was illuminated. We know very well what Italy is. The Italian sky, the Italian sun and the Italian water element. And so the artist felt this pure palette, and this is exactly what he depicted in his canvases. It was at that time, family troubles on the one hand, and changes in artistic techniques on the other, that another important work of the master artist was conceived. He named it The Storm, 1872. It was painted in the early 1870s, in a very important period for him, when the artist moved gradually towards a different, a little to other gradations of colors. When he reached mature creativity, he realized that only a limited palette could be used. Not warmer, there colder. Warmer, as we understand them, everything that is close to the flame of a candlelight or the sun. Colder means water, ice, snow and so on. These were blue colors and a more highlighted gamma. And so researchers called this work of the 70s the blue style of Ivozovsky. In this work, the artist changed not only the color palette, but also the technique of applying paints to the canvas. The painting was so fantastic that it immediately interested one of the richest businessmen and connoisseurs of art of the Russian Empire. What's next in the program? Well, in this case, this painting was of course done in Feodosia, his native city, in his native house on the Black Sea coast. The house and the workshop remain in the city to this very day. Ilya Ostruhov recalled a sufficient number of small sketches when they were on the French coast. Together with the artist, they were looking for very interesting fragments of nature. Then Ivozovsky himself pulled out a small diary and made three lines in it. This is his uniqueness. Already being a very elderly man, he observed all the new things that happened, what appeared and what was manifested in world art.